In July 2023, Musk himself tweeted that “we will say goodbye to the Twitter brand, and gradually to all the birds.”
That's when Peroff, a Chicago-based attorney who specializes in trademark and intellectual property law, saw an opportunity to not only claim the Twitter name, but also use the iconic illustrated logo, affectionately known internally as “Larry Bird.”
Peroff and others began formally organizing Operation Bluebird, a way to give Twitter back its name, services and format, targeting commercial brands in particular.
Some corporations are reluctant to advertise on X for fear that they will be associated with questionable content such as extremist views, fraudulent posts or porn bots. In September 2024, research firm Kantar conduct research noting that 26 percent of marketers surveyed planned to abandon their advertising campaigns on X.
“We think our moderation tools will help the discussion evolve into something more responsible,” Peroff said. “Brands are stuck at X because they have nowhere to go.”
Although Meta-owned Threads began testing ads earlier this year, it has only recently reached this scale.about 400 million monthly active users— which Twitter had at the time of its acquisition by Musk. Neither Mastodon nor Bluesky have any advertising yet.
Mark Lemleya Stanford law professor and trademark law expert, told Ars that X might be able to protect Twitter's marks if he can prove he still uses them.
“Merely ‘using the tokens’ will not be enough to preserve the brand,” Lemley wrote in an email. “Or [X] can defend itself if it can prove that it plans to return to using Twitter. Consumers obviously still know the brand name. It seems odd to think that someone else could take over the name when consumers still associate it with the former social network with that name. But that’s what the law says.”
Mark JaffeA California intellectual property lawyer who is not involved in the case says X Corporation may have to fight to preserve Twitter's trademarks.
“Once it's no longer visible on the website and the owner, the CEO, says it's now called this and not that,” he told Ars, “I don't know how you can defeat the denial argument.”
